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Opponents of DGRs band together

A conceptual computer model of Ontario Power Generation's Deep Geologic Repository (OPG DGR) for low and intermediate level nuclear waste, which is proposed for the Bruce nuclear site north of Kincardine, Ont. (OPG FILE)

Local opponents of proposed nuclear waste burial sites known as deep geologic repositories are joining forces.

Groups in Grey, Bruce and Huron counties have formed the Bluewater Coalition Against the DGRs and announced their plan of action during an inaugural media conference on Thursday in Walkerton.

Coalition spokesperson and Brockton Coun. Chris Peabody said requests under the Freedom of Information Act will be mailed out to eight municipalities.

The municipalities are involved in two proposed DGRs in Lake Huron shoreline communities seeking copies of correspondence between the potential host communities and the Nuclear Waste Management Organization.

The coalition wants to know if the NWMO has held private discussions about possible compensation for municipalities interested in hosting a DGR for high-level waste.

“How much money did these mayors negotiate in private to invite nuclear waste dumps into their communities? The public needs to know,” Peabody said.

There are two radioactive waste burial plans under consideration in the region. Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is proposing to construct a DGR for Ontario’s low-level radioactive waste at Tiverton at a site less than a kilometre from Lake Huron. A joint panel is reviewing the environmental and public impacts of the proposal.

At the same time NMWO, an agency created by federal legislation but funded by the nuclear industry, is searching for a municipality that will be a willing host for a second DGR for all of Canada’s high-level radioactive waste. The councils of six municipalities in Bruce County and one in Huron County have expressed an interest in becoming a site for what the group calls DGR 2.

Brockton, Saugeen Shores, Huron-Kinloss, Arran-Elderslie and Central Huron have all moved to stage three in the discussions with the NWMO.

“We feel that people throughout our region aren’t getting the truth,” said Cheryl Grace, a spokesperson for Save Our Saugeen Shores.

Grace gives the example of Kincardine’s agreement signed in 2004 to host the DGR 1 and the OPG hosting agreement that will pay out $35.7 million over the next 22 years to Kincardine and the surrounding communities.

“We (Saugeen Shores) now get about $280,000 a year. Kincardine gets over $650,000 a year to be the host of this facility and the way the hosting agreement reads, as long as our communities exercise their best efforts to support the DGR 1 project, they will keep getting the money until 2034,” said Grace.

She also said that Huron-Kinloss, Arran Elderslie and Brockton receive amounts ranging from $40,000 to $250,000 as part of the hosting agreement for the low-level waste DGR proposed for Kincardine.

Peabody said he’s opposed to seeing good farmland used as a burial site for nuclear waste. And he thinks there’s a risk of contaminating the Great Lakes basin the source of drinking water for millions of people in Canada and the U.S.

Peabody and South Bruce Coun. David Wood are the only two councillors to vote against the DGR 2 proposal.

Saugeen Shores resident John Mann said while he’s opposed to putting either DGR along the Lake Huron shore line, if it is going to happen at least put all of the waste — operational and high-level waste — in a single repository.

“I am opposed to the DGRs but if we’re going to have them I don’t want two of them . . . at double the cost and double the security. It doesn’t make sense particularly when you can put it all in one,” Mann said.

Mann said he sees no reason to bury high-level waste underground when it has been safely stored above ground in giant swimming pools for the past 40 years.

“When you put it under ground you lose control of it. The next 50 years is OK, but this is forever. It’s a mining operation. I don’t of a mining operation in the world that is failsafe and doesn’t crumble after awhile,” Mann said.